Below is our recent interview with Hari Balaraman, President at GRB.Capital:

Q: You’ve recently announced the official opening of the Initial Coin Offering of GlobalREBitcoin; could you tell us something more?

A: One thing that didn’t make it into our press release is our information about our advisors. In the wild west world of ICOs and cryptos, credibility is always in great demand. Our team is featured on our page, and we encourage anyone who finds our concept and model interesting, to check out our team. We’re blessed with top quality talent in both international finance and real estate.

Q: Could you provide our readers with a brief introduction to GlobalREBitcoin?

A: I’m sure all your readers have heard something about crypto, bitcoin, blockchain, etc. Everyone’s talking about it. Well, GlobalREBitcoin or GRB, is an implementation, on the blockchain, of a tried and tested concept, i.e. allowing people to pool investments by portions or units or shares- and allowing people to own and sell those units between themselves.

For this, GlobalREBitcoin is using the blockchain, because blockchain technology is cheaper to use than conventional methods and it opens up micro-investing across the planet, in a way it has never been possible. With GRB, a person sitting across the world, in a country with high inflation, with 250 dollars worth of savings, can invest in the solid, stable, Canadian real estate market, for a transaction cost of 5-10 dollars. This sort of economic efficiency for investing was unthinkable before models like GlobalREBitcoin brought together investing and the blockchain.

Of course, the other big improvement in the model is when you buy GRB you own and control the tokens in your wallet- not some brokerage or bank account that can be cut off from you.

A: I would like to split the answer to that question into three parts. The first is that the biggest benefit of our cryptocurrency in comparison to conventional cryptos is the safety and stability of investment. The most popular cryptocurrencies in the market are both volatile and highly internally correlated. When Bitcoin falls, all the altcoins fall. A token with an underlying asset value will simply not fall that way. Our lower volatility will still be in effect as merchants begin to accept our coin and network effects increase value. Our coins will also be better than say commodity-backed tokens because our asset base is an income generating base rather than a static one like gold holdings.

Second, our advantages compared to conventional investing solutions like hedge funds and REITs is that using tokenisation and the blockchain is a step forward from those models in terms of economic efficiency. Purchase and transfer of tokens is a fraction of costs associated with conventional instruments, increasing returns to investors.

Finally, we have the three Ss going for us -Sophistication, Security, and Simplicity. These can be briefly described as: Our team is incredibly sophisticated, bringing on board, industry and large asset management experience; Simplicity is our hallmark – the offering is clear- tokens issued against assets that everyone understands, real estate, managed by quality asset managers of proven record, and flowing returns through to investors; and … Security has been our primary goal- our token contract is simple by design, leaving no value at risk on the blockchain, and we extensively use wallets that require multiple confirmations.

Q: Why real estate?

A: We picked real estate for a number of reasons. Real estate is the oldest kind of property, older than gold. It is an intuitive concept for humanity. People fight over land because they are so deeply attached to it. We’re not pitching whizzbang technology moonshots, we’re pitching a steady investment that everyone from Tokyo to Tibet understands and appreciates. Second, our expertise is in that area. We’re packed solid with real estate, and real investment experience. We decided to get into the two things we know well, real estate, and technology. Thirdly, in an echo of the first point, people all over the world are looking for inflation hedges when saving money. Our real estate backed tokens are the best answer for that. They’re better than gold and bitcoin because they have more than just network effect and consensus going for them.

Q: Why did you choose Ethereum blockchain?

A: Some ICO FinTech projects have chosen to use their own blockchain. From our perspective, the business and the tokenholders comes first before the technology. We aim for a combination of the lowest amount of risk and the most efficient returns for our investors by using off-the-shelf products. Hence, we decided to use the most widely used blockchain for smart contracts- Ethereum. Its smart contracts have been tested more than others. Its currency, Ether, is traded everywhere. It has a wide array of technical infrastructure, documentation, wallets, etc., that helps both us and the tokenholders. It’s a gigantic amount of ready-made infrastructure that is available for… taking micro-investment worldwide!

A: In the short term, we’ve got plans to run a bounty campaign to get our tokens in the hands of prospective purchasers. Once our ICO is closed, we plan to move on three parallel tracks. Firstly, we plan to list on at least two exchanges, secondly, we will deploy funds and start our asset acquisition process, and finally at the end of the second quarter after the close of the ICO, start token buybacks using returns from assets.